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What would happen if you lost everything? If the people who were supposed to love you unconditionally were no longer there for you, how would your world change?
That’s exactly what happened to Madeleine Becker when her parents died when she was ten years old. Ripped from her home and everything that she has ever loved, she is forced to start all over again. The only way for her to move on is to build walls around her heart and keep everyone at a safe distance. Her logic: she can't get hurt if she doesn't fall in love.
That theory is blown to pieces when she meets Reid Connely during her freshman year at college. He is gorgeous and darkly mysterious. He understands Maddy's pain all too well, but sharing his pain would mean breaking down the walls he put up around his own heart. Conflicted between loving Maddy and hiding his dark past, Reid starts to reevaluate his world. Maddy's inner strength, snarky personality and breath taking beauty help Reid to make peace with his past.
Together they find out what happens when they let love in.
EXCERPT
He spins me around and pulls me close to him. He places his hands at the nape of my neck and pulls the hair tie out of my hair so that it falls around my face softly. Gently sweeping the hair that has fallen in my eyes out of the way, he brings his face closer to mine and kisses me. This kiss is different from the rest we’ve shared. It’s full of the promise of pleasure.
His tongue brushes up against mine. He’s tentative and slow at first. I can tell he’s trying to control himself, but that’s not what I want. I want to dive into his depths and get lost there, to give myself over completely to this man who I love. I know in this moment that I need to tell him that. Despite my earlier reservations about being scared, he needs to know that I love him. Whatever walls he’s keeping up, whatever secrets he’s got from me, can’t possibly be enough to change my love for him and he needs to know that.
I break the kiss and look up into his piercing blue depths. “Reid, I have to tell you something.” He looks at me questioningly before saying, “Maddy, you can tell me anything.” He brushes his knuckles softly across my cheek and says, “Is it something I did? Talk to me; tell me what’s on your mind.”
I pull him across the room to sit on the bed. My insides are trembling with nervousness over what I’m about to say and over what I know I’m finally going to let happen. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet touching the floor. I straddle his lap so that my legs are wrapped around him and so that I can look at his cool cerulean pools of love when I speak. I cup my hand around his cheek tenderly and take a deep breath, bracing for the words that are about to come out.
“Reid, I love you.” I pause to register the shock in his eyes, but there is none. He just smiles adoringly at me and traces slow, soft patterns across my back. There’s silence for a moment, and I need to fill it. “I know that you might feel like it’s too soon and I know we each have our own boatload of issues, but I can’t help how I feel. You’re amazing and you’ve broken through every barrier I’ve ever put in place to keep people out. There’s no one I want more than you and I know that we’ll be able to overcome whatever is thrown at us. I feel that strongly about us. It’s scary, terrifying actually, but I just needed you to know that I love you. I love you so, so much.” I say all of that so quickly that I need to inhale deeply just to get some air back into my lungs.
His lips tip up into a devilishly beautiful smile and he says, “Are you done? Can I have my turn?” I nod and say “uh huh” in return. Normal language function has completely left my brain.
“Madeleine, I love you too.” I move to say something but he silences me with a kiss. “No, you got your turn; now it’s mine.” He kisses me again before saying the rest. “I love you more than anything. I would move heaven and earth to make you realize how much I love you. And I don’t want you to think I’m saying this just because you’ve said it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and, yea, I’ve got some fucked up shit in my head, the same shit that made me build those sky-high walls in the first place, but around you, they just vanish. That’s why I did all of this up here tonight. I wanted to create a beautiful memory of the first time I told you that I loved you. When we do decide to take things to the next level, physically, I wanted the bed to be ours and ours alone. I wanted it to just be me and you in there –no other memories except this one right now, of you glowing beautifully by the candlelight, sitting in my arms, listening to me carry on and on about how much I love you.” He kisses me on the tip of my nose and brushes the pads of his thumbs under my eyes where a few stray tears have fallen.
His confession of love ignites a fire low in my belly. If I thought I wanted him before, I was sadly mistaken. I reach for the hem of his shirt and pull it over his head, our eyes only breaking contact when the fabric brushes over his head. I push him back onto the bed so that he’s lying down and I’m still straddled on top of him. His hands are at my waist, but they’re so big that they nearly span it entirely. He moves them down a little to where my hips flow into the upper swell of my ass and he squeezes gently. His thumbs begin tracing sensual circles dangerously close to my core.
Review ~ 4.5 Stars
Let Love In by Melissa Collins was a great book. Let me start by saying that I like all the romance in books, this book had quite a bit, but it didn't go overboard. Maddy is a tortured soul who lost her parents at a very young age and has since kept herself completely guarded, only letting one friend from her childhood in. At the end of her high school career she vows to herself to try to be happy and fulfilled. Enter Reid, an ass, at least at the beginning of the story. I really couldn't stand him at first, but Reid also has his own tragic story and walls around his heart that aren't so cut and dry. From their first meeting, there is an electricity coming from within the pages, which I loved. The middle of the book was very mellow and I was just waiting for something to happen that would change the course of events, and let me tell you, when it did......I was crushed.....that I would have to wait for the next book to find out what happens after the bombshell. But it will be so worth it when I get to read the next chapter in Maddy and Reid's story. My favorite quote from the book is a good motto that all should remember, "Self-preservation is a double edged blade - keeps you safe, but at a fairly large cost." Melissa Collins reminded me that we should always hold the possibility to let love in!
~Kelly~
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About this author....
I’ve always been an avid reader. Majoring in English Literature was a no brainer. Becoming a teacher and instilling my love for reading into my students was also a no brainer. I’ve spent the last ten years teaching and I’ve loved (mostly) every minute of it. When I was home on maternity leave for my third son, I discovered a new genre that sparked my creativity. My passion for writing sprang from my love of reading and once I knew I had a story to tell, I couldn’t wait to get it out there. I only hope that my readers enjoy reading my story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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